


Beginnings

by kyanos



Category: Naruto
Genre: Pre-Series, romance is in the eyes of the beholder, the third shinobi war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-06
Updated: 2012-09-06
Packaged: 2017-11-13 15:50:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyanos/pseuds/kyanos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-series. Tentative beginnings turn into something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beginnings

i.  
their meeting was  
as expected and as brittle, as fragile as  
the clink of glass.  
Itachi still felt dizzy a week after it happened.

ii.  
the weather was unforgiving;  
it snowed and snowed and snowed  
the flakes clumped like sugar stuck in the edges of jars  
and melted sweet,  
glistening like honey  
on powdery skin and sooty lashes.

iii.  
then the war came

iv.  
the snow still fell,  
unnoticed.  
the river was draped in crackled ice,  
they walked past it together-  
jaded children  
going past innocent adults.

v.  
it snowed harder.  
steaming blood froze in to crystals even before it touched the ground  
the world splintered and got pieced together by a storm.

when he killed for the first time  
it was midday and light glinted deceptively from the ice like warm sunshine from windows in summer  
he could've been in his house  
drowsy, and lightheaded with  
sheer _simplicity_  
but here he stood  
one hand bloody with the warm blood of a woman that smelled of chrysanthemums  
the other with that of his own heart, cool even before he wrenched it out of his chest  
when reality came lurching back with a flood of flying kunai and fists  
he clung to sleepy, sunshine diluted eyes; a shade darker, warmer - than his own  
and it was over in seconds.

vi.  
they met once during the war  
his own blank, red eyes caught a flash of it's own twin.  
he remembered feeling  
guilt and fear coming alive in his eyes like a person coming to life.  
Only,  
seeing the same reflected across from a sea of flame and blood and ice and death  
killed it instantly.  
relief was swift and acknowledgement swifter  
but no time for words,  
a breath in  
and the freshly dead black dissolved  
a breath out  
and the blank red was back

vii.  
it was over bewilderingly soon.  
after all the first step is half the journey  
after which every day was the same day every day  
empty faces and full bodies  
but there wasn't any blood anymore  
the damages shrank as his precision grew, so did he.  
curled up so much upon himself:  
reduced to a sliver of the person he used to be

viii.  
then he arrived at his house,  
a smiling woman and a stiff jawed man  
stood there to welcome him home  
for a moment he didn't recognise them  
then his mother's lip trembled  
and before he knew it  
he could feel the her soft hair pressed againt his cheek and his father's rough hand in his hair clutching them both in a fierce hold  
he felt relief slip down his throat like warm honey  
he felt his heart jump to life, back in his chest:  
the first cold snatch of breath when coming up from icy water  
he was home

ix.  
After the meeting with the broken remnants of his clan  
he went looking for Shisui  
both had sat next to their fathers knowing that like two of their cousins they were the only thing  
holding their cracked fathers together in a room where soldiers,  
now men  
had come to let out what had been threatening to spill out of the cracks  
and still they held it together and kept it inside  
after a few minutes of this fragile dance the children decided to have mercy on their fathers  
and left  
they didn't need to let anything out  
the war had hollowed them out  
scooped out their hearts, rent their souls into nothing and exchanged their blood for vanished air  
they were nothing but cracks held together by emptiness.

x.  
he found him  
a study in sharp shadows and stark light stood under the bare boned sky  
Itachi stopped and  
looked.  
Clumsy with an overwhelming tangle of feelings,  
the crunch of snow underneath his feet as he turned to flee gave him away  
and suddenly  
he was in direct contact with such familiar eyes that he almost stumbled-  
the intimacy he feared lost dropped back like a puzzle piece and he was  
whole again for the briefest of moments.

they didn't say anything for a while  
let the changes sink in slowly  
Itachi's longer hair, Shisui's shorter  
a new set of scars hidden behind bandages and walls...  
they had heard others say that the war had turned boys in to adults  
yet he didn't feel grown up at all  
sure he felt older  
the same way a new book feels old  
when it's had its contents rifled through in a hurry with clumsy and uninterested fingers leaving torn pages and cracked spines  
the snow fell achingly slow and the words came tumbling out slower  
maybe, they thought, putting two human-shaped emptinesses together  
they might end up with _something_.

Then there were brief, heavy pauses;  
kindling for a flickering light in each other's eyes.  
The understanding that they had changed settled between them  
for better or worse?  
they didn't know  
but they were going to face that by each other's side  
and that was enough,  
for now.

As Shisui drifted to the mundane and the inane, and Itachi into silence  
he felt himself unfurling  
petal by petal like a flower in winter  
he looked at the warmth growing in Shisui's eyes  
and it was like standing next to the glowing sun at the height of summer  
he felt the cold grip of ice leave his bones in a flash  
the clunky beating of his heart steadied out to a frantic staccato churning out life  
and he thought it unfair  
that his heart would hurt again when it hadn't even begun healing yet.

xi.  
They had spoken as much as they could,  
every word out left two new ones behind,  
every look traded, evey tentative smile returned, every story told  
brought back more of him.  
But there was still so much that was too brutal for things as delicate as words and gestures.  
So they stopped.

Mouth heavy with the weight of a whole life,  
jaw suddenly aching with the effort of holding it back  
With a charactectristic leap of faith  
Shisui placed his forehead on Itachi's  
to let him know  
how tired he was  
how bone tired he was  
how soul tired he was  
Itachi didn't pull away.  


_He exhales it all out in one painful sigh_   
_and fixes the beloved forehead pressing against his in place with his own_   


the snow relents  
and  
the contact slows down  
from painfully electrifying to soothing.

xii.  
Ice cracks at the mouth of the Nakano  
winter is going to leave  
and the water will flow again.

* * *

 

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> First foray into the fandom so apologies for any butchering.


End file.
